We met Frank Gruber at Syndicate in New York in May and last week our Director of Product Management, Matthew Bookspan, brought Frank up to date on our RSS server plans. He's posted an overview on Somewhat Frank covering RSS applications, how an appliance approach simplifies installation and how having a central access point for receiving and distributing internal and external feeds uses bandwidth efficiently.

The report's recommendation's include, "In order to maximize their investment in RSS, site operators should leverage
emerging tools and technologies specifically tailored to RSS."

If you're one of the companies making the move to RSS, talk to us about lowering the barrier for feed management and deployment while helping users control the flow of the inevitable RSS fire hose. It's what Attensa is all about.

We met DL Byron on the road at the first Six Apart Blogging for Business seminar in San Francisco. Byron is a talented designer, entrepreneur and business blogging expert who has done some innovative blog strategy and design projects for Boeing and others. He's working with Attensa connecting our web marketing and blogging strategies and bringing some polish to our look and feel.

We gave Charlie Wood an overview our Attensa Enterprise RSS server yesterday and he has a great write-up on Moonwatcher.

We're planning a July launch of our server which includes RSS proxy services, a web-based reader, optional integration
with Microsoft Exchange and Active Directory, and support for secure
feeds.

To simplfiy installation and configuration we'll be offering the server as an appliance. The major advantage of shipping a pre-integrated hardware appliance is
the dramatically simplified install and config process. It's built on Linux, Apache, Tomcat, PHP, and an open-source database, and includes all of those components out of the box.

Three articles caught my attention this week and together they create a snapshot of the current state of affairs of Enterprise 2.0.

The first is BusinessWeek's CEO's Guide to Enterprise 2.0 written by Rob Hof. It's a terrific overview with examples of how innovative companies are using blogs, wikis, search and RSS to improve customer communications, overcome information overload and streamline collaboration. The article concludes with an observation by Tim O'Reilly that companies who embrace Enterprise 2.0 technologies will outperfrom those who don't.

Next I read Enid Burns' piece on Executives Slow to See Value in Corporate Blogging on ClickZ. In a survey with 150 senior executive from Fortune 1000 companies only 5 percent
said they see corporate blogging as a communications medium; 3 percent
see it as a brand-building technique; and less than 1 percent see it as
a sales or lead-generation tool. Many respondents doubt the credibility
of blogs as a communications tool (62 percent); brand-building (74
percent) and a sales or lead generation channel (70 percent). Robbin Goodman, EVP and partner at Makovsky & Company, the firm that released the study, said in what may be the understatment of the week, "There is a learning curve that needs to take place." Robbin also points out "The benefits of blogging for a business can significantly outweigh possible risks."

I also listened to David Berlind's podcast Reality Check: Wikis? Sorry. Never Heard of Them. He turns the table on a technology tradeshow by interviewing the attendees instead of the exhibitors. His conclusion, technology executives who are beginning to explore these new technologies and tools are extremely clear on why they need to embrace the
newer technologies but they're just not sure what those
technologies are.

Taken together, the articles are a clear indication that companies including Attensa need to do a better job explaining the benefits of adopting our technologies. They also point out that technology executives who embrace Enterprise 2.0 tools early can have a significant competitive advantage.

It's good when your company name begins with the letter A. That puts Attensa at the top of the list of the Supernova Connected Innovators. Attensa joins 11 other companies with "extraordinary potentional to create new markets and shape the connected future."

The companies were selected by Supernova and Mike Arrington of TechCrunch from nearly 100 submissions. Thanks.